Journalist, blogger, lecturer and recently entrepreneur. Writing about technology, culture and society since 1991. Co-founder of http://blomming.com , the first European start-up to open Social Commerce to everyone. I work at the intersection of technology, Internet and media, reporting and consulting on its social and cultural impact, and now doing my part with my startup. I authored three books, including one on Web 2.0 and Social Media in 2006. I've been included in Edelman's Top 1.000 Twitter Tech Influencers Worldwide http://infoservi.it/patpv in 2010, and Wired.it listed me as one of the 50 Italians to follow http://infoservi.it/hzkot in 2011. I believe in the idea of a new and open entrepreneurship. Blogging (in Italian) since the end of 2005 on http://infoservi.it .

Beintoo, Loyalty Platform For Mobile Apps, Gets $5 Millions in Series A Funding

Italian startups go international and grow fast – very fast, indeed. Beintoo, a loyalty and monetization platform for mobile apps, has reached more than 100 millions of mobile devices in less than a year, and is now announcing a $5 million Series A funding led by Italian VC firm Innogest Capital.

After winning the Startup Competition at LeWeb 2011 (press release, and more about LeWeb 2011 in this other Forbes article), this Italian company founded in 2010 opened an office in Silicon Valley and rapidly gained the interest of developers and investors. Their basic idea is to create a cross-application mobile loyalty system in order to offer to users, especially gamers, real rewards for their advancement in using the app: kinda a “Gamification-badges-meet-Groupon-offers”. A great value for developers, that can focus on building the application while offering their users a monetization opportunity. A “Pay-per-engagement model”, as described by Antonio Tomarchio, Beintoo’ CEO and co-founder.

“Results speak for themselves” says Claudio Giuliano, Managing Partner of Innogest, the fund who led the investment, in the official press release. “Beintoo has a unique proposition for app developers and retailers… Add this to the quality of Beintoo’s special offers and you will obtain a company that stands out in the mobile monetization ecosystem”. Tomarchio adds: “Retailers can use the loyalty users have for their favorite apps to attract them to their deals, offers, and products, creating a true personalized experience. We find that transforming time spent in an app to real benefits results in high conversion rates and very happy users”.

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You are very right, Damian: the financing is the start of the real challenge. “The devil is in the details”, somebody says, and the implementation / execution phase is full of details :) But what do you think of their model? Can we really be interested in deals while we are using an app?